General Information

From Joana BC at the end of her residency

21.03.2012 - 08.05.2012

I’m working in the
studio, making just one more creature made of materials I found during my walks
in Trélex, and I can hear the wind outside.

That wind is not alone though. I
can hear the cow bells ringing and, wow, they are noisy. When that happens I
know it’s going to be a good day because all the animals are going to be out in
the fields.

The desire for freedom and adventure pushes me to the mountains and
makes me wish to turn myself into a bird. The Montblanc is the great God. I
worship it every time I come down the hill.

From where I stand
this house looks perfect. But it’s when the floor creaks under my feet and the
wind is blowing very hard outside that I feel my blood running faster. This
house could be gloomy and scary but it’s just welcoming and gentle.

The studio is a big
space with wood beams and an amazing view to the mountains but I’m interested
in the little wooden house in the garden. The white of the studio doesn’t suit
my imaginary. And one day Nina said: “If you like, you could think of using the little playhouse in the
garden.” And that made my residency into something really
amazing and fulfilling.

I don’t like to be
inside the studio and see the green grass outside and so I take my notebook
outside and I write. It’s funny how pieces
come together sometimes. I started writing a short story about a rather curious goat
and the next day I found out the neighbour had goats. I went there a couple of
times alone to see how they act. I was able to finish it before the end of the residency which turned out to be a major achievement for me.

During one of my walks
through the fields I listened to Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song” and thanks to
it my ideas for installing my work at the house started to make sense. There’s
something very crucial about the residency that was really important for me:
this is a family house. My work deals with notions of domesticity, and family
and interpersonal relations. At the same time I’m part of it and I’m an
observer, witnessing how relationships are weaved and maintained.

The Trélex Residency
is Nina’s fourth baby and she takes good care of it. She is a generous and kind
person who can be critical and very down to earth for your own good. She is
very skilled in helping you find your potential and take it further. It’s true
that she studied the human brain for such a long time but there’s something
more to it. I didn’t get any therapeutic lesson but good dialogue, real life
examples, honesty and dedication.

And then of course it
was really good I had Hira by my side with her lively laugh, her long
conversations, her questions and her spicy and amazing food. I think about
chillies now more than I used to, that’s for sure.

I have two loves in
Switzerland: La Collection d’art brut in Lausanne (website here) and L’Espace Jean Tingely and
Niki de Saint Phalle in Fribourg (website here). I’ve been interested
in Art Brut (Outsider Art) for a couple of years due to my belief in a spontaneous and intuitive way of making Art. La Collection is not a museum,
it’s an anti-museum and it’s a house of stories, where accounts of the
outsider’s lives are mixed with their “artistic practices”. It is a temple.

And what can I say
about Niki and Jean? They’re my favourites. They remained outsiders in their
own way. It’s a love story that overwhelms me. It impresses me how they managed
to collaborate and still keep such individual work, such strong personal characteristics.
How one’s work speaks lower when the other’s needs to speak louder and how it
all comes together as a scream of rage and peace at the same time. I admire their
differences and duality and their reaction to Art and society. They were free
and somehow managed to continue like that until they died, I believe. Their
death was connected to their way of working. I like to think that what consumed
them was what killed them but also what set them free and made them feel more
alive.

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The Trelex Residency is motivated by my curiosity about the making of all forms of Art. It has been designed on the basis of what I, as an artist, would like from a residency: the Trelex Residency does not ask artists to fill out application forms, to outline an agenda for their stay, to commit to putting on an exhibition, to interact with a particular institution etc... I would like artists to feel free to use their time in Trelex in whichever way seems most productive to them.

The trelex Residency

I believe that an open and free environment, supportive of artistic creativity through practical help and critical dialogue, exchange and collaboration can help any artist at any point in their career see their practice in a new light.

Anyone is welcome: please read the green links above attentively if you are interested in coming.